I've been running this journal text-only for about eight years now, and I've decided that there should just be more.

One idea would be a podcast. A periodic "Code Zone Radio Minute" could be fun and would likely get a following, but I see the following disadvantages:

- It doesn't live forever. I know some folks who have started reading my journal from the very beginning. It's puzzling to me why someone would want to do that (especially with the preponderance of "check out what I'm selling on ebay this week" posts), but I don't think I could do that with MP3 files. It'd just get too goldurned huge, both in size and bandwidth. The broadcasts would necessarily need to disappear after a while, and I really would like 'em to stick around.

- You can't search. I google for my own journal entries from time to time, especially when I recall a bookmark or something that I need to re-visit for some reason.

- It's not rich enough. For example, one thing I'd like to do is to show off a couple of good effects I did for Bulldozer. With an MP3 broadcast, I could show off some cute music for the game, but not a text effect or animation.

The solution seems to be to podcast stuff in SWF format (or alternatively AVI or Quicktime, but that'd be huge). Sound-only SWF is only a few bytes bigger than an MP3, and I could also embed streaming video or Flash video whenever I wanted to show something off. Problem is, I don't think the world's ready for SWF-format podcasts. I doubt that many podcasting clients could deal with it, and it'd kill off any chance for people to listen to 'em on a portable device (except for a PocketPC, and those are far scarcer than iPods).

The solution to the searchability problem seems to be to write the entry, then use the entry as "show notes" for the broadcast. That way the podcast wouldn't be likely to have any content that wasn't also text. That'll also help with the problem of shows going away, as the "meat" of the show will still exist forever as text.

Comments?



Case in point. Here's the new introductory animation for the new Bulldozer. I'd love to play this animation on top of a "bed" of me commenting on how it was made and soliciting your comments on it.

As it stands, I'll just have to live with posting a link (because you still can't embed Flash content into journal entries) and asking what you think of it.

my new Bulldozer intro

Again, comments?